Simple Fabric Pumpkins {tutorial}

I was wanting to add some new items to my fall décor this year and really liked the idea of some fabric pumpkins. Most of the ideas I found through Pinterest involved a lot of cutting and sewing, but then I found THIS tutorial from Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom. Hers was by far the easiest way to make some adorable pumpkins. I used my sewing machine instead of hand stitching, and decided to switch up how I finished mine off, so I thought I’d do a tutorial as well in case you, like me, would rather not go out in some crazy rain to find sticks to use as stems.

I pretty much made a pumpkin patch’s worth because I planned on using three to decorate the registration table at a mom’s group I’m a part of. But then I liked the way this looked across my buffet that I made a few more.

I love the combo of jute, raffia, fabric and burlap. My materials for a patch’s worth were: 1/2 yard burlap, 1/3 yard each of two coordinating fabrics, 1 roll of jute, 1 package of green raffia, 1 roll of green florist’s wire, batting and plastic grocery bags.

I cut sevearl different sizes of fabric—the ratio of width to height determines the shape of your pumpkin (a more square piece makes a taller pumpkin, a wider rectangle makes a shorter/squatier pumpkin). As you can see, I didn’t bother ironing my material first and it didn’t matter at all.

(don’t you love my chipped polish?)

1. Folding fabric in half with short ends and right sides together, sew the side opposite the folded side.
2. Still wrong side out, sew a gathering stitch around one open edge of the tube (see picture below if you aren’t familiar with a gathering stitch).
3. Pull your thread tight until your opening is closed and tie off the threads.
4. Turn your material right side out and the gathered closing will be the base of your pumpkin.

For a gathering stitch, set your tension to the highest and stitch length to the longest setting and sew. Be sure and leave lots of extra thread when you clip it so you have enough to hold onto.

The gathering stitch doesn’t work well on the burlap because it’s a much thicker material. Instead, I clipped one of the burlap strings close to the seam and pulled it tight.

5. Sew a gathering stitch around the remaining opening but don’t pull your threads tight yet.
6. Fill your pumpkin with batting. For my larger pumpkins, I followed Jamie’s advice and used plastic grocery bags as filler, wrapping them in batting.
7. Pull the treads tight. On some of the pumpkins the thread broke or it didn’t completely close the opening, so on those I wrapped the remaining thread around the gathered material and tied it off.
8. On the ones that it did close perfectly I just tied the threads off and it looked really nice.

9. Use the jute to wrap around the pumpkin as though you’re tying ribbon around a gift. Section it in half, quarters and then eighths, pulling tight so the sections are well defined.
10. Tie off the jute.
11. To make a raffia stem take a handful of it and then fold it in half.
12. Slide the fold under the jute knot and the slip the ends through it for a knot.

13. Tying it this way means the raffia will stick up, more stem like.
14. Trim the stem to your desired length.
15. Wrap some florist’s wire around a stick or something round to make curly vines.
16. Tie the jute ends around the middle of the wire. You can just tie it in a knot or do a bow.

And then you have some super cute pumpkins! This was a great, simple project that adds a lot of fall pop to my home.

Go HERE for past fall-related projects and decorations.

Thanks for stopping by!

Parties I like to link up with:
Made with Love, The Sunday Showcase Party, Weekend Wrap Up, Make it-Wear It, Show and Tell Saturday, Weekend Bloggy Reading, Take a Look Tuesday